Group items tagged

Smart Growth America advocates for people who want to live and work in great neighborhoods. We believe smart growth solutions support businesses and jobs, provide more options for how people get around and make it more affordable to live near work and the grocery store. Our coalition works with communities to fight sprawl and save money. We are making America's neighborhoods great together.

Our national transportation policy has barely changed since the 1950s, when gas was 20 cents a gallon and President Eisenhower launched the interstate highway system. Today, we live in a very different world. The interstates have been built. Americans are paying record prices at the pump and feeling stuck with costly commutes and congestion. Bridges are crumbling. As our population becomes ever more urban, more are breathing dirty air. Our climate is threatened. Too many older, younger and rural Americans are stranded. Volatile areas of the world literally have us over a barrel - millions of barrels a day, in fact.

Transportation for America is a broad coalition of housing, business, environmental, public health, transportation, equitable development, and other organizations. We're seeking to align our national, state, and local transportation policies with an array of issues like economic opportunity, climate change, energy security, health, housing and community development. Together we can realize a better transportation system that works for all Americans.

Agenda 360 is a regional initiative to identify, encourage, measure and connect action in six priority areas: business growth, qualified workforce, transportation, inclusion, government collaboration and quality place. In combination, these efforts will lead to a region that offers a high quality of life and a sustainable economy.

An ideal complete streets policy: Includes a vision for how and why the community wants to complete its streets Specifies that 'all users' includes pedestrians, bicyclists and transit passengers of all ages and abilities, as well as trucks, buses and automobiles. Applies to both new and retrofit projects, including design, planning, maintenance, and operations, for the entire right of way. Makes any exceptions specific and sets a clear procedure that requires high-level approval of exceptions. Encourages street connectivity and aims to create a comprehensive, integrated, connected network for all modes. Is adoptable by all agencies to cover all roads. Directs the use of the latest and best design criteria and guidelines while recognizing the need for flexibility in balancing user needs. Directs that complete streets solutions will complement the context of the community. Establishes performance standards with measurable outcomes. Includes specific next steps for implementation of the policy

Over the past 30 years, the Main Street movement has transformed the way communities think about the revitalization and management of their downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts. Cities and towns across the nation have come to see that a prosperous, sustainable community is only as healthy as its core.

Global Green is working to address some of the greatest challenges facing humanity. In the United States our work is primarily focused on stemming global climate change by creating green buildings and cities.

The closing keynote at the Economist Conferences Event, "Creating tomorrow's liveable cities", presented byProfessor Jan Gehl, founding partner of Gehl Architects,Copenhagen. This video provides a good deal of information on the benefits bicycling and walking have on a livable community when integrated into the community landscape.

Small business contracing is difficult to navigate. We've built the Small Business Opportunities Tool to help small businesses research historical records of what the Department of Energy has purchased, and find upcoming procurement opportunities. Browse through the Small Business Opportunities Tool to learn more about the Department of Energy's organization, business model, facilities, and goods/services we procure to accomplish the agency's misison.

Our vision is simple yet ambitious: to create a new sector of the economy which uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. This sector will be comprised of a new type of corporation - the B Corporation - that meets rigorous and independent standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.

What does Transition Network do? Transition Network is a charitable organisation whose role is to inspire, encourage, connect, support and train communities as they self-organise around the Transition model, creating initiatives that rebuild resilience and reduce CO2 emissions. Ultimately it's about creating a healthy human culture, one that meets our needs for community, livelihoods and fun. We're here to support you.

"Our Mission: to bring economic, social and environmental systems into closer harmony with the realities of a finite planet and a globally powerful human race by using the disciplines of systems thinking, system dynamics, and collaborative learning that were pioneered by our founder, Donella Meadows."

The failure of many of the systems that underpin modern life is increasingly difficult to avoid, so it's not surprising that interest in 'systems innovation' is growing fast. At the Point People, we've seen pioneers emerging in this field from different sectors, leading very different kinds of organisations and speaking very different professional languages. We had a hunch that these frontrunners could tell a compelling story about what systemic innovation looks and feels like in practice. So we put them in front of a camera and asked them a handful of questions.

"About Donella Meadows founded our Institute in 1996 to apply systems thinking and organizational learning to economic, environmental and social challenges. Mission Shift mindsets - values, attitudes, and beliefs - when they are out of step with the realities of a finite planet and a globally powerful human race. Restructure systems when the rewards and incentives of the system are inconsistent with long term social, environmental, and economic goals. Build the capability to manage and learn in complex environmental, social, and economic systems."

An initiative of Peter Block and friends, Restore Commons aims to curate the ways of thinking and practice towards the common good. The move to the commons is well underway. We simply want to document it. Restore Commons is designed to be an online gathering place for stories and radical ideas strong enough to build the social capital and engaged community required to restore the common good. The website features a variety of content including stories, articles, videos and podcasts that highlight inverted and radical thinking that is essential to an alternative economy, a connected neighborhood, and ways of dealing with the end of the so-called consumerist middle class. This is what is required to restore compassion, civility and interdependence that is disturbingly fragile in today's world. The focus is on place-based, localized and grassroots initiatives that are alternatives to the tools of empire.

For decades, we have been building transportation through communities, rather than creating communities through transportation. Streets designed only to move cars can work so much harder. They can certainly carry more people by more modes of transportation-but they can also become great places in their own right.

The P2P Foundation is an international organization focused on studying, researching, documenting and promoting peer to peer practices in a very broad sense. This wiki is our knowledge commons. Our motto is "Together we know everything, together we have everything", i.e. pooling our resources through commons, creates prosperity for all. We document thousands of initiatives going in that direction on order to create "Hope with evidence".

California's Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) brings together the state's recycling and waste management programs and continues a tradition of environmental stewardship.

On the Commons (OTC) is a commons movement strategy center founded in 2001. Through our efforts, we help: Build and bring visibility to the commons movement; Initiate and catalyze commons work; and, Develop and encourage commons leadership.